The story
By the time he was eight, Stevie Wonder was a soloist in the choir at Whitestone Baptist Church in Detroit. You can hear that church all through Songs in the Key of Life, the 1976 album that turns fifty this year. It's there in "Have a Talk with God" and in the hard truths of "Village Ghetto Land," as much as in the joy of "Sir Duke" and "I Wish."
The Blind Boys of Alabama have been singing gospel since 1939, when they started out as students at a school for the blind in Talladega, Alabama. On this tour they pair Stevie's songs, many of them from Songs in the Key of Life, with their own gospel, and they choose the ones where his church upbringing shows most. Ricky McKinnie, who has sung with the group for more than thirty years, says "Heaven Help Us All" "talks about the way it is now."
“'Heaven Help Us All' talks about the way it is now. If God doesn't reach down and make a difference in people's lives, show people where they're going wrong or give people a heart, we got a problem.”
It isn't solemn. Reviewing an earlier stop on this tour, JamBands heard singing "flawless with a sense of in-the-moment joy not often seen on a concert stage." During "I Wish," singer Sterling Glass came down to shake hands and dance with fans.
As McKinnie puts it, "Some songs never grow old."